:: The Car Lot ::

Friday, July 22, 2005

At the San Juan church in Hagonoy, Bulacan two coffins lay side by side, my uncles. They would have their last mass together. I sat in the second row beside my mum, my wife, my sister-in-law, my brother, and my sister. In front sat my mum's brother's wife, 3 daughters, 2 sons-in-law, 3 granddaughters. I could see their shoulders elevate and their neck muscles tense as they tried to catch their breath from the sadness that wouldn't let them breathe. I looked over to my right and my dad's relatives were also drowning in tears, difficulty in breathing. After the mass they were buried in two different adjacent cemeteries. I went with my mum. We all walked to the cemetery which was 50 meters or so from the church. When they opened up his coffin for the last time, the shoulders went higher and repetitions hastened, their neck muscles tensed even stronger. There were wimpers now, they could no longer hold their sadness inside. I held my mum, because that was all that I could do. The harder she cried the tighter I held her. She sobbed with the sadness I hope I will never know. I tried so desperately to be strong but it broke my heart to see her so and I couldn't contain my tears. I looked around and my wife, my brother, my brother's wife, my sister, my Kuya Willie all had tears, the smiles they always wore transformed into closed lips trying to keep the sadness at bay. The people left and we stood in the afternoon sun as the bricklayers and my uncle's son-in-law closed the tomb with bricks, sand, water, and cement. My brother ferried us home as most of us had walked from the wake to the church. It had been a long day. My uncle lived a quiet life, and fittingly so was his funeral, maybe angels came down to help his family cry softly, from the heart. You have to believe in angels. You have to believe in God because at times, they are all you have.

If you feel like taking time to pray for them and their families, they were Eduardo Dela Cruz, carpenter, and Catalino Halili, farmer. R.I.P.+

Dr. Jayson Arellano Left the Car Lot @ 9:46 AM 0 Honks

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Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Going Farther
My uncle died early this morning, the 6th of july, 2005. He had an intracerebral hemorrhage early the morning before. He fell down, vomitted & never regained consciousness. Over the phone I knew it was a question of time. Not of money. Not of appropriate medical intervention, short of neurosurgery & symptomatic shotgun management, there was none. It was a question of time. That afternoon we went to Bulacan, he was comatose and had a Glasgow coma scale of 0, unresponsive even to pain. Earlier that day he had lost voluntary control of his bladder & bowel. He had gone into seizures 3 times while we were bedside. His pupils were pinpoint non-reactive to light stimulation. He was tachypneic with a respiratory rate in the 60's and rales all throughout both lung fields. BP hypertensive at 160/100 mmhg, tachycardic. His temperature was rising and falling, ominous signs of autonomic dysreflexia. All physical signs led to only one conclusion, death. A doctor had seen my uncle earlier & there was only one diagnosis. My mum had called me to advise them on what to do. How do you tell your cousins that there is no hope of recovery? You quantify it. You disguise hopelessness in medical terminology and scientific babble. Their decision was to wait with him as his heart & respiratory muscles became tired, & his body gave out, as it eventually would. My cousin said she felt sorry for her dad & that his life was full of nothing but hardships. I would agree, but i would also disagree. I told her that happiness is not only measured in how much one had. He had 3 daughters, 3 grandchildren, also all girls. His life was simple, their lives were simple but that isn't all there is to life. Nowadays it seems like that's all that matters. Fact of the matter is, it does. But its not all that matters. It must've been their darkest moment, it was one of mine. I told myself it was a medical decision not a moral decision i was asked to help them make, and i did. Hopefully i won't be asked to do it again, but so many times in our lives more is asked of those who are strong. I am not strong, but life has a way of making you, or breaking you. I am still wondering, worrying, second guessing, if i had made the right decision. The irony of it all is, the more you deal with death, the more you realize how fragile life is. How momentary. I am not deeply religious but i have my moments. Like these, when you have to believe in a greater good, a higher power. When you once again have to ask him to carry you because you've gone as far as you can go. And just like so many times in your life you surprise yourself & go just a little farther...

Dr. Jayson Arellano Left the Car Lot @ 8:33 PM 0 Honks

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